At the Nation's Table

DOLORES SNYDER, a Dallas cooking instructor, believes that deep within the soul of many a Texas iced-tea drinker lurks an Anglophile yearning for a good, hot ''cuppa,'' and maybe a rectangle or two of shortbread. Miss Snyder should know: for 12 years she has been teaching the art of English tea service throughout the state.

Miss Snyder became interested in this often elaborate late-afternoon custom of the British leisure class - which she explains is correctly called cream tea or low tea, but never high tea, which refers to the working-class evening meal - while living in London in the early 1970's. There she collected recipes for traditional tea savories and shopped the flea markets for service pieces. Upon returning to her native Texas, she began to teach her single-session classes, which always have a waiting list. (Potential students may reach her at 214-717-4189.) ''My typical tea student is a woman in her 40's or 50's who is well traveled and enjoyed having tea while visiting Britain,'' Miss Snyder said. ''Some have even enrolled their private cooks, who come to class dressed in their white uniforms.''

At a recent demonstration at the Blanco River Cooking School in Wimberley, Miss Snyder, dressed in a floral tea frock, regaled 17 women and one man with stories of memorable English country teas as she trimmed the crusts from watercress sandwiches spread with butter (''never cream cheese'') and mixed recipes of her barmbrack tea cake, which contains candied fruits and strong tea, and scones.

''Tea is a very reasonable, nonalcoholic way to entertain,'' she said. She invites friends to her home for Sunday afternoon tea once a month.

The class was duly attentive during the preparation of each of the three sequential tea courses - sandwiches, crumpets and scones, and pastries - but when Miss Snyder turned her attention to the beverage itself, the room fell quiet. Warming the teapot with hot water before carefully measuring the Earl Grey, the instructor kept a vigilant eye on the kettle heating on the stove.

''Bring it just to the boil,'' she admonished, running to the stove, ''then a quick splash to wet the leaves before filling, and steep for three to five minutes. If tea leaves float to the top, the tea has been improperly brewed.''